


i carry your heart with me

by avislightwing



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Crying, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fights, Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, I PROMISE THIS ONE ENDS HAPPILY, Kissing, Love Confessions, Orphan!Sloane, Pre-Relationship, car metaphors, commitment issues, it follows canon if that tells you anything, just a truly obscene number of car metaphors honestly, like... relatively speaking at least, suicide ideation, very brief but take care of yourselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-04-25 16:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14382330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: Sloane's heart has never been something she gives away freely. She keeps it safe, plays her hand close to the vest, and refuses to believe anything's changed. But when she's faced with a separation she's not willing to accept, she's forced to consider that maybe - just maybe - her heart's been given away without her even realizing it.Title from[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]by e. e. cummings





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "hey birdie, why do you keep starting things and never finishing them?"
> 
> well, you see,
> 
> I have no explanation

Their battlewagon skidded across the finish line, kicking up clouds of the dust that covered everything like a thick coat of tan paint. Sloane swore viciously, slamming her hand against the steering wheel. _Second_. The battlewagon had been nearly totaled by a couple of asshole elves with too much money, going by their gold-plated gazelle masks.

“Figures,” Hurley said, climbing back into the shotgun seat. She had a cut across the bridge of her nose, and her eyes were out of focus from a particularly nasty version of Confusion that hit them halfway through. It had taken her three rounds to succeed in her saving throw. “Probably got their parents to soup up their wagon. We’ll get ‘em next –”

“Don’t,” Sloane snapped. “We should’ve won. We should’ve _won_.” She turned a glare on Hurley. “Why didn’t you take them out when you had the chance? The one in front was wide open at the end there!”

Hurley stopped and stared at her. “What?”

“You heard me! Why didn’t you do your monk shit and knock him out? It’s like you wanted us to lose!” Sloane could hear her volume increasing, but couldn’t stop it. She was stuck in the wrong gear, wrestling with the wheel, soaring towards a cliff.

“I can’t believe this,” Hurley said. “You’re blaming me? Seriously? What’s _wrong_ with you?”

Sloane’s stomach turned, but it immediately turned into a flare of white-hot anger. “Oh, no,” she snarled, and got out of the battlewagon, slamming the door. Hurley followed on the other side. “Don’t you get all high and mighty now, don’t you fucking dare –”

“No, you know what, Sloane? You can go fuck yourself!” Hurley yelled. Sloane couldn’t see Hurley’s face under the ram’s head mask, but she knew it must be brick red, like it always was when she got mad. “When you’re ready to apologize, you know where to find me, and until then, I’m out!”

Sloane was already regretting her words as the spike of anger drained like a popped blister, leaving a cold, burning ache. “Hurls –”

“Uh-uh,” Hurley said, cutting her off, voice quivering at the end. “I can’t. I gotta go.” She turned and disappeared into the stands, the crowd, her small form quickly swallowed up by the tide of chattering spectators.

“Hurley,” Sloane whispered hoarsely.

She didn’t come back.

 

For the first time in months, Sloane made her way back to the garage by herself. Usually this was one of the best parts of racing – both of them hyped on adrenaline, reenacting their favorite parts of the race, yelling over each other. They’d hang out in the garage for hours, drinking the cheap beer they kept in the fridge for those very occasions. Laugh at each other’s terrible puns. Sloane would make fun of whatever Woven Gulch slang had made its way into Hurley’s one-liners, and Hurley would tease Sloane about her hysterical, squawking laughter in the face of almost certain death. Hurley would heal their scrapes and bruises, and if their injuries were more serious (or if Hurley was out of spell slots), they’d chug healing potions. Sometimes Hurley would stumble home to her apartment at two in the morning, and sometimes she would pass out on Sloane’s couch.

Sloane didn’t know where Hurley was now. If she had, she would’ve gone straight there, got down on her knees, begged Hurley’s forgiveness. But she didn’t – she didn’t even know where Hurley’s apartment was. How did she not know where Hurley’s apartment was?

Sloane could tell she was running on empty, so she cut a few corners patching the battlewagon up, tossing a tarp over it without even rolling arcana like she usually did to make sure there weren’t any lingering spell effects. It didn’t matter much; the way she was feeling, she probably would’ve crit failed anyways.

How could she have let this happen?

Sloane grabbed a pack of fantasy gummy bears from their stash and slumped onto the couch, closing her aching eyes. Her hands were shaking from the aftermath of adrenaline and anger. The garage was too quiet – it was _too quiet and her mind was too loud, she was flooding the engine, it was just turning over and over without starting_ –

She wasn’t going to cry.

(Can you do an insight check on yourself?)

That was a lie.

A tear traced a dusty trail down her cheek and splashed into her lap. Even as she scrubbed furiously at her face, another one joined it, and another. Sloane’s heart ached, that pain pouring out over her face in tears and snot, and she didn’t want to think too much about why it hurt too much. Thinking about that would mean thinking about how much Hurley meant to her, and she really couldn’t do that. Sloane’s whole jam was not getting attached – literally. She rented her garage on a month-by-month basis. She had a stash of fake names and another one of fake battlewagon licenses she flashed at the militia, along with a shit-eating grin, when the occasion arose. She was a fly-by-night petty criminal, a seat-of-her-pants racer, a when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going-going-gone kind of girl.

It wasn’t like she’d been born in Goldcliffe. It wasn’t like she had any particular attachment to it. So what if some smarmy militia monk thought she was a jerk? So what if Hurley, the monk in question, had run off? Sloane would show her. She could run off too. She was an expert at it. The first time Sloane ran, she was thirteen. She stole twenty-seven gold and a cheap nylon jacket from her foster parents at the time and tried to sneak onto a caravan that was passing through Neverwinter.

She got caught, that first time.

They threw her into juvie, called her a _no-good kid who’d never amount to shit_. Well, screw them, she’d thought, and once she’d gotten out of juvie, she ran again, and this time, she got away, and got away with it. Hid in the next town over, working odd jobs for a mechanic who justified it by letting himself believe the lie she told him that she was an elf, really, that’s why she looked so young, all elves look like that. She learned how to fix battlewagons, and then to build them. Turned out she had a knack for it. Before either of them knew it, she was better than her teacher. One night, she took the battlewagon he was working on, made a few special modifications, and took her out for a spin on the streets. It felt like she was soaring, and her heart beat so fast in her ears that she couldn’t hear another damn thing (including herself), and it felt like she left her stomach behind three streets back. She fell in love with it.

‘Course, the guy didn’t see it that way, and before he could kick her out, she ran again.

That was a pretty steady pattern for years, until she settled down in Goldcliffe – as much as she could settle. She had a place of her own, a steady job. She raced on a regular basis. She knew all the places around town that neglected their security or used shitty locks that she could crack with nothing but a roll of ten on thieves’ tools and a good-ass perception check.

And then she’d met Hurley.

_“You’re in trouble!” The small figure doubled over for a second, catching her breath, then straightened up again. She had a tawny brown undercut that needed cleaning up, uneven freckles dotting her face and arms, and steely look in her eyes that Sloane could read even in low light and from behind a mask. She wore a sleeveless gi that, Sloane couldn’t help but notice, showed off the defined muscles of her arms. She had a pair of handcuffs clipped to her belt, and a militia badge fastened over her heart. “In fact,” she continued, “you’re under arrest!”_

_Sloane wasn’t known for the best insight checks, but she must’ve gotten lucky, because she knew exactly what to do. She gave a slow, sleazy grin, and tilted her head to one side. “Well, shit, if I’m gonna be arrested by someone this good-looking, I guess I don’t mind too much,” she quipped. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”_

_The blush that spread across the halfling’s cheeks – Sloane didn’t know if it was from embarrassment or frustration – was visible even in the watered-down moonlight streaming through the window of the jewelry store. “Hurley. Lieutenant Hurley of the Goldcliff militia,” she said. “And don’t think you’re getting out of this by – by flirting with me. I’m a trained officer, and you’re a criminal. I’ve been chasing you for weeks!”_

_“Have you?” Sloane squinted at her. Now that she mentioned it, she did look familiar, but there was something about her… A sudden wave of delight and recognition spread through Sloane, and she snapped her fingers. “Hot damn, I’ve seen you at the races, haven’t I? In the stands. You’re there every time. You whistled real fuckin’ loud when I won the race last week.”_

_Hurley’s mouth dropped open. “You’re the Raven. You’re – holy shit. You’re the Raven?”_

_“One and the same, that’s me. Always glad to meet a fan,” Sloane said, the rough purr of her voice like the low rumble of a battlewagon engine sitting at a starting line, waiting for the gun to go off._

_“I’m not a fan! I just – enjoy – the races, they’re – I mean, it’s not that you’re –” The red in Hurley’s cheeks was definitely from embarrassment this time, and Sloane idly considered that she was damn cute for a cop._

_“You drive?” Sloane asked casually._

_“No!” Hurley spat immediately. “It’s illegal!” And then, in a reluctant voice, “…and I don’t have a wagon.”_

_“Let’s make a deal, Lieutenant,” Sloane said, dangling a silver-and sapphire necklace from one burn-calloused finger. “I put all the shit I took tonight back, you don’t arrest me, and you come around my garage tomorrow. I’ll take you on a drive. Little one-on-one time with a celebrity might do you some good, loosen that belt a little, huh?” Sloane’s eyes flicked down to Hurley’s waist, then back up to her face. “You don’t tell Captain Bane ya found me, and I don’t spill the beans about your hobby.”_

_“I could just arrest you now. They’d never believe you.” Hurley fingered the handcuffs hanging from her belt._

_Sloane grinned. “Sweetheart, if you were going to arrest me, it’d already be over and done with,” she said. “I’d be sitting pretty in a jail cell. You’d have a bird in a cage. But you know what they say – better a bird in the hand than two in the bush. Cell, cage, whatever. Metaphor got away from me.”_

_In Hurley’s defense, she really did seem to struggle. But the conclusion was inevitable. Hurley heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Fine! Fine. One battlewagon ride, one day of amnesty. Midnight tomorrow, though, I’m back to hunting your ass down, understand?”_

_“Perfectly,” Sloane purred._

Of course, once Sloane had got Hurley in her battlewagon, it was all over – for the lieutenant, at least. Her eyes shone, and her grin was wide enough to rival Sloane’s, and Sloane should really stop thinking about Hurley sitting beside her in the battlewagon with the wind ruffling her hair and snatching away her delighted noises whenever Sloane sped up or took a corner hard.

Who the _fuck_ was she kidding? She’d been running from Hurley for months, even as they were slowly, inexorably drawn closer together. It was like a string was tied between them, and as much as Sloane yanked on it, tried to persuade herself she could take off any day, anytime, and not be bothered – because when had she ever been? – the more she knew that that string would reel her in again.

Or it would have. Maybe with what she’d done today, she’d cut that string, and whatever had kept the two of them tied together was gone. Maybe she should just get in the battlewagon and take off – abandon the garage and the races and Hurley and head on to the next town.

_Yeah, right._ She was in too deep. Strapped in without a harness, cliffs on either side. Nowhere to go but forwards, whether Hurley jumped out of the wagon or not.

So Sloane let her face screw up against the tears, and let them soak the arm of her couch until she fell into an exhausted sleep, the image of Hurley’s heartbroken face pasted on the inside of her eyelids.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (oh my gosh I actually finished something)

Sloane was a disaster in general, and she was in rare form tonight.

Somehow, here, at the Menagerie, her favorite red-light district tavern and the only one in Goldcliff she hadn’t been banned from, that’s all she could think about:  what a disaster she was. She had a burn across her arm and smears of grease on her face from the garage. She had dark circles under her eyes from playing fantasy Fallout until two in the morning. All she’d had to eat that day was fantasy ramen, a shit-ton of coffee, and the beer she was now drinking. It was no wonder she felt like crap.

She was a disaster, and Hurley knew it.

Sloane winced as she gulped down the rest of her beer. It’d been three days since their fight. Three days since she’d seen Hurley at all.

Turns out you don’t know how fuckin’ much someone means to you until they leave.

Sloane gestured for the bartender to bring her another drink, and he rolled his eyes, but slid her another glass. She paid her tab, which was more than could be said for the majority of his patrons. Normally Sloane would limit herself, but tonight, she had a plan. It was a shitty plan, but it was a plan, and she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t at least try.

She wasn’t quite sure if she meant that literally or not.

Half an hour later, she stumbled out of the bar, everything just fuzzy enough to maybe pull this off. Usually when she drank, she felt buoyed, floaty, even happy. But then, usually when she drank, she drank with Hurley. She hadn’t drunk alone in months, and it sucked about as much as she remembered. Instead of giving her that pleasant, radiant buzz, the alcohol had settled in her veins like ice, an arcane core of desperation sitting heavy in her stomach, pushing her on.

Sloane half-stumbled to the militia station. She knew where it was, like you know where a wasp’s nest is so you can avoid it. Tonight, though, she walked right in the front door, crossed the lobby, and folded herself in half across the top of the front desk.

“Can I help you?” the tiefling behind the desk said distastefully. He eyed Sloane over, red eyes narrowing as he got a whiff of the alcohol coming off her.

“Yeah.” _Just get through it_. “Is… is Hurley here?”

“Lieutenant Hurley is not on duty tonight, no,” he said, shuffling papers around on his desk. “What do you need with her?”

“Gotta talk to her,” Sloane said insistently. “I gotta.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the morning, because –”

“Lee?” Sloane’s head snapped up. She’d know that voice anywhere. She’d know it drunk, she’d know it in her sleep, she’d know it if she was enchanted or cursed or dead. “What’s going on?”

There she was, standing in the doorway. Hurley. She was wearing that sleeveless gi she always wore when she was being a cop, not just a regular person. The gel must’ve worn out of her hair, because instead of sticking up in crisp curls like it usually did, it had fallen in waves around her face. She was holding a mug, and hen she saw Sloane, she tensed, her expression going blank.

The tiefling, Lee, flushed, turning his dull red cheeks bright. “Lieutenant. Um, this – person – was making a nuisance of herself, so I was sending her on her way –”

“I’ll take care of it,” Hurley said, setting the mug (it must have coffee in it – Hurley drank tea in the mornings and coffee when she needed to stay awake, Sloane knew that about her) down on Lee’s desk. “If you’d follow me, ma’am?”

In half a daze, Sloane followed Hurley into the back rooms of the militia station. Back through corridors of whitewashed wood, scuffed floors. Back into a small office, where Hurley closed the door behind them. The lamp sitting on the messy desk threw her face into sharp relief, emphasizing the dark circles under her eyes and the now-weary expression on her face.

“What do you want, Sloane?” Hurley said, running a hand over her undercut. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I had to see you,” Sloane said, then stopped. What was she supposed to _say?_ She hadn’t thought this far ahead. “I – I had –”

“You had to what?” Hurley said, sharply. “You had to blame me when we lost that race? Sloane, I really don’t think –”

“I had to apologize,” Sloane blurted out, and her face crumpled. “Hurley. Hurls. I’m sorry, I’m really fucking sorry, it wasn’t your fault, it never was, I get it if you – you hate me, but I had to say it, I can go now.” She fumbled blindly behind her for the doorknob.

“Wait,” Hurley said, in a decidedly different tone of voice, and Sloane froze. “You… really came to apologize?”

Sloane couldn’t look Hurley in the eye as she nodded. “I was a real dick,” she said quietly. “You didn’t deserve that.” _You don’t deserve me._

“Sloane?”

Sloane glanced up, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of one hand, smearing the grease stains. “Yeah?”

Hurley started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “You’re drunk,” she said instead, gently. “C’mon.” She maneuvered Sloane around her desk and into her chair, which tilted dangerously. “Shit, shit, forgot to have that fixed. Here.” Hurley shoved a glass of water into Sloane’s hands. “Drink this.”

“Okay.” Sloane did as she said, sipping at the water. “Thanks for, uh. Letting me in.”

“Well, yeah. I wasn’t just going to give up on us. Not without at least listening, you know? Oh – oh, hey, uh, I didn’t –”

Sloane was crying again, messy. She thought she would’ve cried all her tears out over the last few days, but she kept surprising herself. “I missed you so godsdamn much, Hurls,” she whispered between repressed sobs shaking her hunched shoulders. “I thought I’d fucked everything up for good and – my life isn’t good, Hurls, I’m not good, but you? You’re the _good_ part of my life. I don’t wanna run away from that. I don’t, I don’t, I promise, but it’s hard, and I’m not… I can’t…”

Hurley took the glass from Sloane and set it onto her desk with a click. She gave a soft sigh, but not like she was irritated, or frustrated, or even sad. More like she was letting something go.

Then she climbed into Sloane’s lap.

Sloane stiffened as Hurley’s three feet of solid muscle was suddenly on top of her. “Hurls –?”

“I missed you too,” Hurley said. “A lot. A whole lot.”

Hurley’s eyes were gleaming brown and clear in the lamplight, and it made Sloane’s breath hitch in her chest. “I’m not really the smooth-talker you thought you caught that first night, huh?” she said.

“Nah. But I like who you really are more.” Hurley leaned forwards, resting her forehead against Sloane’s, heedless of engine grease. “There’re some things I… wanna talk about when you’re sober. That sound good?”

“Sounds real good,” Sloane agreed, and her arms wrapped around Hurley’s smaller frame automatically. Hurley leaned in, and Sloane leaned back.

She supposed she must’ve dozed off, but she didn’t know when. All she knew is that now she was half-awake, and it was still dark out with the lamplight flickering, and Hurley was still in her arms.

“Hurley?”

No response. She must still have been asleep.

Sloane lifted a hesitant hand to Hurley’s head and stroked it through her curls, mussed from sleep. “You’re so godsdamn beautiful,” she whispered. Her head was still slightly fuzzy from sleep and the beginnings of a hangover. “Who gave you the right, huh? Which god do I have to fight for putting you in my life? You should be living your boring militia life and then I swan in and fuck everything up. Pull up in a cloud of dust and there you are.”

“Sloane?” Hurley murmured, shifting in her arms, curling closer.

“Didn’t know you were awake,” Sloane said, her face burning.

“’M not. Were you saying something?”

“Nah. Nothing important.” And Hurley yawned and buried her face against Sloane’s collarbone and Sloane knew then, for sure and for certain, she was gone, gone, gone. Gone on Hurley. It felt like it did when she’d first driven a battlewagon, that same soaring, swooping feeling inside her. Something that made her want to laugh and cry all at once, and to never stop. Never run away.

It felt like she’d driven off a cliff, all right, but she wasn’t dropping. Just staying right there in midair.

“Wanted to talk to you,” Hurley said, sounding only marginally more awake.

“You mentioned that last night. What about?”

“I really like you, Sloane,” Hurley said softly.

…That couldn’t be right.

“What?”

“I really like you, you doofus. A lot.” Hurley opened her eyes, and the very first hints of sunrise reflected in them, and it was better than the glint of the midday sun off a chrome hood. “And you fucked up, but you fixed it, and… that was really good.”

“I really like you too,” Sloane said. “I wanted – I wanted to just _go_. But – I couldn’t leave you.”

Hurley shifted, sitting up on her knees with her legs on either side of Sloane. “You couldn’t?”

“I couldn’t,” Sloane said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing you again.”

“Hey, Sloane?” Hurley said.

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Sloane said. “I think I’d like that.”

So Hurley did.

Hurley’s lips were chapped and awkward and perfect in the soft morning light beginning to peek in over the horizon, tinging the room pink as cherry blossoms. Sloane kissed her back, carefully, uncertainly, until Hurley buried a hand in the back of Sloane’s choppy hair and pulled her closer, and then Sloane shifted from neutral to drive. She held Hurley close and kissed her – and kissed her – and kissed her.

“Why haven’t we done this before?” Sloane managed as Hurley kissed the corner of her mouth.

“Because we’re dumbasses?” Hurley suggested. “Just a couple of real idiots, here.”

“Good point.” Sloane’s breath caught as Hurley’s mouth moved to her neck. “If your boss comes in, you’re gonna get fired.”

“Who cares?” Hurley laughed – genuinely laughed – which made Sloane laugh, and sent them both into gales of giggles all over again at how terrible they both sounded, how ridiculous the situation was, how much in love they were and how close they’d come to losing the possibility of that love.

“I’m such a fool,” Sloane said when she could finally breathe again. “I’ve been wanting to do that for _ages_.”

“Same here.” Hurley kissed Sloane’s nose, like she had to kiss some part of her, like it was a compulsion. “You should go, I guess, before Captain Bane gets in for the day.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Do you want to come by the garage tonight?” Sloane suggested.

“Yeah, I think that’d be alright,” Hurley said, and brushed her thumb over Sloane’s dirty cheek. “Work on the battlewagon. Talk. Do more of… this.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Sloane kissed Hurley’s cheek one more time, then maneuvered them both so she could stand up. “Do you need to let me out the window?”

Hurley shook her head. “Lee owes me one, and no one else should be here this early,” she said.

“I’ll see you tonight, then.”

Hurley smiled as Sloane left, and Sloane thought, that smile is powerful. That smile could keep her here, keep her aloft when she thought nothing could.

 

Months later, Sloane would hold Hurley in her arms again, as she was dying, and remember that day. Remember that smile.

 _You’re in trouble_ , Hurley would sing-song, and Sloane would feel like she was falling, her heart dying as Hurley’s veins turned black.

She couldn’t fix this one, couldn’t keep them aloft. Not now. But she could ground them both.

Hurley’d driven off a cliff for her. The least she could do was fall with her.

_Don’t let it happen again._

 

 

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

~ “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]”, e. e. cummings

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [@birdiethebibliophile](birdiethebibliophile.tumblr.com)!


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